Gaughan: Since the departure of Gundogan, Man City've gone from control to chaos

Remember when Manchester City were boring? When punters could not bear to watch them. All so predictable: the games and the results. Pass the remote.

How City’s fans, and Pep Guardiola, yearn for the days when their winning style of football drew groans. A style of football that depends on control, on slowly strangling the opposition by keeping and moving the ball.

But 15 games into their third consecutive title defence, only Premier League games involving Aston Villa and Brighton have yielded more goals than City’s 53. It’s been chaos this season — and not always the organised sort.

The six-point gap to leaders Arsenal will not bother Guardiola so much. They’ve come from behind before and there is always a belief they will build a winning run that takes the title. There is no reason why that cannot happen again, but Guardiola will have to plan the assault in a different way.

This season the team is made up of direct wingers such as Jeremy Doku and boundless runners from midfield like Julian Alvarez — which has left the defence exposed on occasion.

Ilkay Gundogan’s departure, a freebie to Barcelona, is the biggest change City are having to adapt to. He was captain, scorer of historic goals, but also the one man who truly got Guardiola and the skill of pausa: how to dictate matches. He rarely lost the ball and knew exactly when to quicken or slow proceedings down.

The one player available during the defeat at Villa who could do that job, Bernardo Silva, was shunted to the right wing given absentees elsewhere. It left City with two centre halves (Manuel Akanji and John Stones), a teenage full back (Rico Lewis) and a striker (Alvarez) in midfield.

The subsequent lack of control meant Erling Haaland dropped deeper to get on the